Traffic reporting is the study of movement of vehicles on the roads. Analytical techniques may manage and track traffic information and derive travel times, guide driving behavior and optimize road infrastructure for cities. Traffic Message Channel (TMC) and other traffic services deliver traffic information to customers. Traffic incidents and traffic flow are reported through broadcasts. Traffic delays may be caused by one or more of congestion, construction, accidents, special events (e.g., concerts, sporting events, festivals), weather conditions (e.g., rain, snow, tornado), and so on.
Surveillance cameras may be used to monitor traffic levels. However, the analysis of video is computationally intensive. Tracking individual vehicles across image frames requires significant resources and is often impossible for busy roads. In addition, many surveillance cameras have low frame rates, which contribute to the difficulty of determining traffic conditions. The problem is further compounded because in high traffic situations, vehicles in the video images tend to overlap. While traffic speed estimations may be made, accurate vehicle counts cannot be obtained from video with overlapped vehicles. Some applications may require accurate vehicle counts to provide reliable data to the user.